AOLC Blog

Act Now to Lend Your Voice to the Strategic Direction of the Farmer Training Initiative
 
Angelic Organics Learning Center is shaping its next 3-year strategic plan for the years 2016-2018, and we would be grateful if you would share any insights you may have about our mission and programs as well as the changing landscape of the food and farm system that impacts our work.
 
The objectives for this feedback are to gather input regarding

1) the Learning Center Farmer Training Initiative's current mission and programs; and

2) possible future strategic directions for it.
 
Farmer Training's...

It was the winter of 2002 when Sally Sommers opened her first newsletter from Angelic Organics Learning Center at her home in Villa Park. She was intrigued by the on-farm workshops and thought it might be the perfect location for her annual family reunion. She called Tom Spaulding, executive director and co-founder of the Learning Center. Tom obliged, and the Sommers family headed out to the farm!

The Learning Center is located on Angelic Organics Farm, a third generation farm located in Caledonia, Illinois, that is also home to one of the largest CSA...

Winter briefly returned with cold winds and snow flurries for our past Field Day, but that did not stop fifteen CRAFT farmers from visiting Springdale Farm in Plymouth, WI, to learn about tools and machinery from farmer Peter Seely.

Peter Seely, Springdale Farm, CRAFT Bernadette and Peter Seely started Springdale farm in 1988 after spending a number of years together in Holland. Before leaving Europe, they packed several shipping containers with tools and machinery (including some seldom-seen items such as a leek lifter and a steerage hoe) to commence an almost thirty-year process of constant experimentation. Peter says that “equipment...

Unfortunately, bird flu is in the news again..and it's a serious concern for all poultry owners in the Mississippi Flyway, which includes Illinois. A strain of highly-pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), variant H5N2, has been discovered in numerous Midwestern states within the past month or so. This virus has not been transmitted to people or entered the food supply, but literally millions of chickens and turkeys have already died or been euthanized due to this disease. It has affected both large commercial operations and small backyard flocks, so it's time for every poultry owner in Illinois to take precautions and begin...

Yatte Moore discovered two passions and talents in the past two years that he didn't know he possessed: farming and filmmaking. Yatte's brother Desmond Moore was working with Angelic Organics Learning Center at Blackhawk Courts Farm & Gardens and got his older brother involved. Farming wasn't easy work, but Yatte found that he was good at it. "It made me a man," Yatte explains of working on the farm.

He discovered he possessed another talent when he enrolled in Make Moving Pictures Film School, a project sponsored by Rockford Housing Authority (RHA), Community Foundation of Northern Illinois,...